If the tone is not yet consistent, the aesthetic is, a strong sign that “Riverdale” knows what it wants to be. The terrific art direction warps the bubble-gum iconography into something haunting and lurid. Take Archie and the Blossom twins’ hair — so red that it’s clownish, like dyed cotton candy. What the original comics drew as milky and wholesome, “Riverdale” dials up to ghostly and unnatural.

The old world of Archie was saccharine, down to the 1969 single by spinoff pop group the Archies, “Sugar, Sugar” (which gets an update in the series from the Pussycats). This “Riverdale” suggests that so much sugar, over time, can’t help but make a town a little sick.